Willits bypass: Judge issues restraining order; could delay project for a year

In a surprise move Wednesday, Mendocino County Superior Court Judge Cindee Mayfield issued a temporary restraining order, stopping any excavation from the Mendocino Forest Products Company site for use on the Willits bypass project. The order will remain in effect at least until Sept. 8 when the parties to the pending lawsuit will appear in court to attempt to resolve the matter. The request for the temporary stop order was filed Tuesday involving a lawsuit filed by Keep the Code and the Willits Environmental Center in April 2014.

Mendocino County issued the permit to allow the fill removal to begin last week.

"At this point, even if the injunction is lifted on Sept. 8, it is unlikely our contractor will be able to move enough soil to place for the bridges to allow them to settle through the winter. We are likely looking at another year in delays, and a minimum of another $8-12 million in delay costs," says CalTrans spokesman Phil Frisbie.

Background:

The original Willits bypass project plans involved bringing in more than one million cubic yards of fill from CalTrans property at Oil Well Hill. While this borrow site was approved in advance, the contractor was allowed to pursue alternate fill sites. In early 2013, the bypass contractors decided to use the Mendocino Forest Products site at the former location of the Apache Mill about 2 miles north of the Willits city limits. It is also more than a mile closer to the bypass project than the Oil Well Hill site.

Mendocino Forest Products obtained a grading permit from Mendocino County in July 2013, and the DeSilva Gates, the bypass contractor, began hauling fill from the Apache Mill site in mid-August 2013. An emergency lawsuit was filed on Aug. 23, 2013 by Keep the Code and Willits Environmental Center against Mendocino County asking the court to stop the transfer of fill. The county reviewed its permit, determined the permit had been issued in error and revoked it on Aug. 28, 2013. About 46,000 cubic yards of fill had been quarried from the site before the permit was revoked.

Mendocino Forest Products subsequently applied for and received a Surface Mining and Reclamation Act exemption in November 2013 allowing it to remove the fill as a one time mining operation. SMARA required the project also meet all necessary permit conditions required by the county and other agencies.

In February 2014, the Board of Supervisors decided to bypass the Mendocino County Planning Commission to review the new permit application directly. In March the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors held a public hearing on this project and voted 4 to 1 to accept the Mitigated Negative Declaration to allow the project to proceed. A Mitigated Negative Declaration is a statement that a proposed project, including any proposed modifications to reduce the project impacts, will have no significant impact on the environment. By accepting the Mitigated Negative Declaration, the county determines that a more extensive Environmental Impact Study is not required.

In April 2014, Keep the Code and Willits Environmental Center filed a second lawsuit against Mendocino County and Mendocino Forest Products Company claiming the new permit was issued in violation of regulations. The lawsuit has been sitting in court without any real action waiting its turn in the slow moving judicial hopper.

The suit alleges the county "abused its discretion and failed to act in the manner required by law in approving the project based on an inadequate Mitigated Negative Declaration in violation of the California Environmental Quality Act and by exempting the project from the Surface Mining and Reclamation Act and the Mendocino County Surface Mining and Reclamation Ordinance." The lawsuit requested the court to order the county to set aside any project permits and to comply with these regulations.

The lawsuit alleges the county failed to require an analysis of impacts associated with land scarring, conversion of timberlands to non-forest use, biological impacts to fish habitat, traffic impact, Brooktrails emergency evacuation plans, traffic and greenhouse gases.

With the issuance of a restraining order, Judge Mayfield has asked both sides in the lawsuit to present arguments on Sept. 8 to determine whether the restraining order will remain in place.

Other permit conditions stop most work in the northern area of the bypass after Oct. 15.